In May 1800, Napoleon was at Geneva. After consultations with the engineers it was determined that the main army should cross into Lombardy by the Great St Bernard, smaller divisions travelling by the St Gothard, Mount Cenis, and Little St Bernard routes, the better to mislead the enemy. A start was made on the 15th. Column after column began the weary tramp along the desolate, snow-covered tracks, feeling their way across narrow ledges over precipices, cheered again and again by a sight of the First Consul as, wrapped in a grey overcoat and seated on a mule led by a guide, he traversed the rugged route of the Great St Bernard. The twenty miles of soldiers crossed in less than a week, and considering the treacherous nature of the march, or rather scramble, very few lost their lives. The post of Bard, on the banks of the Aosta in the valley of that name, garrisoned by the Austrians, had been attacked by the advance guard under Lannes without success. It was the most serious opposition they had yet encountered, and it was necessary to pass almost under the shadow of the guns. Marmont conceived a happy device which proved entirely successful. At night the streets through the village were liberally strewn with straw and other stubble by the French soldiers. The wheels of the gun-carriages were then carefully covered to avoid rattling, and the passage was successfully achieved, although the alarm was sounded and there was some desultory firing. On the 2nd June Napoleon, marching with the utmost rapidity, entered Milan. A week later, and almost at the same time as the First Consul was withdrawing his troops from the old city for further offensive operations, Lannes with the advance guard won the important victory of Montebello. The nature of the battle was such that the French general said he could hear the bones crash in his division like hail falling on a skylight. Cremona, Piacenza, and other places fell, but on the 14th, at a specially inopportune time, because Napoleon had thought it necessary to divide his forces owing to his uncertainty as to the precise whereabouts of the enemy, Melas and 31,000 Austrians appeared in the plain of the Bormida. The skill of Lannes and Victor proved of no avail; the reinforcements which the First Consul brought up could not shake the determination of the Imperialists. The wounded Austrian commander, foreseeing no further engagement and complimenting himself on his success, left the field. In this he committed an irretrievable blunder. Desaix, but recently returned from Egypt, was in command of 6000 men some miles away, and having heard the dull roar of cannon, was hurrying to Napoleon’s assistance. He arrived late in the afternoon, and is said to have assured the First Consul that “the battle is lost, but there is time to gain another.”